Table of Contents
FAQs
Troubleshooting
Related Articles
FAQs
- What is the sorting behavior for the public-facing Catalog’s prebuilt filters?
- How can I improve the ranking of custom pages in global search results?
What is the sorting behavior for the public-facing Catalog’s prebuilt filters?
Overview
Visitors to your public Catalog site will have the option to filter Course and Program search results using the “Sort By” dropdown.
For Courses, options are:
-
Code
Name
Subject Code
Department
Description
Career
For Programs, options are:
-
Name
Code
Long Name
Catalog Display Name
Degree Designation
Description
Sorting Behavior
Overview
The sorting behavior for each available option is listed below.
-
This is the default.
It sorts alphabetically by short title.
For most schools, we will sort the courses based on the availability of course attributes in the following order:
Catalog Display Name
Transcript Description
Short Title
Long Title
For a handful of schools who’ve requested it, we instead sort the courses based on code. But note that if you go this route, it applies to both Courses and Programs. If you wish to go this route, reach out to your Coursedog contact.
Code
Sorts alphabetically and numerically by Course Code Attribute + Number, e.g. ACCT101, 102, ANTH 101, 102, etc.
Name
Sorts numerically then alphabetically based on course short title
Subject Code
Sorts based on Subject Code first.
The number has no bearing on sort order. Instead, we sort the courses based on the time it was created in Coursedog (this can result in ACCT-211 appearing before ACCT-102, for example, if ACCT-211 was created first).
Department
It will sort courses first by Department ID, and then secondarily by the time it was created in Coursedog.
Description
It will sort the courses first by the Description attribute, and then secondarily by the time it was created in Coursedog.
Career
It will sort first by Career attribute, and then secondarily by the time it was created in Coursedog.
Long Name
Programs sorted alphabetically according to Program Long Name.
Catalog Display Name
Programs sorted alphabetically according to Catalog Display Name.
Degree Designation
Sorted first alphabetically by Degree Designation and then alphabetically by Program Name.
How can I improve the ranking of custom pages in global search results?
Question Detail
You want to improve the ranking of custom pages in the global search results within your catalog (i.e. not necessarily SEO for external searches like Google or Bing).
Answer Summary
To rank a certain page higher than others, we recommend adding keywords to the page title.
If, for example, you want your “About Us” page to be the top result when a site visitor searches for “How we got started”, you might want to change the page title to “About Us | How We Got Started”.
Additional Context
The below table breaks down how we rank pages in Coursedog.
The weight is the impact of that field; the more weight it has, the more priority it gets in ranking.
Troubleshooting
- General Search Troubleshooting (Contemporary Only)
- Course Subject Code Not Appearing in Dropdown (Contemporary Only)
- Course Subject Codes Not Appearing in Alphanumeric Order (Contemporary Only)
General Search Troubleshooting (Contemporary Only)
Problem Overview
The search function on your public website isn’t behaving as expected.
Explanation
The exact solution can depend on your problem (see “Course Subject Code Not Appearing in Dropdown” below).
In general it’s important to keep in mind that the search facet pulls from the page templates, and the catalog page template pulls from Curriculum. Consequently, a first step when troubleshooting any sidebar search issue is to confirm the same question id is in use across all three areas
Updates to the Catalog page template typically require a refresh of the sidebar search template.
Learn More
Configurable Course & Program Search
Course Subject Code Not Appearing in Dropdown (Contemporary Only)
Problem Overview
A Course Subject Code that’s attached to a department isn’t appearing in the Course Subject Code search on your Catalog’s public website.
Solution
Make sure the missing the Course Subject Code is in your search facet data set. You can do that by:
Navigate to Catalog > Settings > Sidebar Search Filters.
Select the applicable search.
Click into “Course Subject Code” to open its settings.
Click the “Data Sets” toggle on the left (under “Question Settings” to open it.
Click into the dropdown under “new option” to find and select the missing code.
Click “Add Option”.
Learn More
Configurable Course & Program Search
Course Subject Codes Not Appearing in Alphanumeric Order (Contemporary Only)
Problem Overview
Once a visitor to your public website selects a subject code from the dropdown, the options don’t show in alphanumeric order.
Solution
You likely need to switch the sort order to code (shown below).
